In the exposure mask manufacture, an inspection is made to determine whether a mask pattern is formed on a transparent substrate according to a design. In this way, detection is made of, for example, a pinhole defect (white defect, clear defect) caused by removal of a film serving as a mask pattern which should not be removed and an etching-insufficient defect (black defect, dark defect) where part of a film is not removed and thus remains due to insufficient etching. When such a pinhole defect or etching-insufficient defect is detected, correction is made for it.
For correcting the foregoing white defect, there is, for example, a method of depositing a carbon film or the like in the pinhole according to an FIB (Focused Ion Beam) assist deposition method or a laser CVD method. For correcting the foregoing black defect, there is, for example, a method of removing the unwanted portion by irradiation of FIB or laser light.
Recently, a photomask defect correction method has been proposed which physically removes a projection-like defect formed on a glass substrate by the use of a fine probe having a pointed tip of a stylus profilometer or a scanning probe microscope (see Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent (JP-B) No. 3251665    Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2003-43669